The United States blockade against Cuba was made official by President John F. Kennedy on February 3, 1962, but it is a policy that began much earlier, Ambassador Abelardo Moreno said today.
During a special broadcast by Cubavisión Internacional, jointly with Radio Habana Cuba and Prensa Latina, the diplomat said that Kennedy’s order had its most immediate precedent in “in the infamous secret memorandum of (Lester) Mallory”, Undersecretary of State during the administration by Dwight Eisenhower(1953-1961).
Mallory advised in his April 6, 1960 memorandum to deprive Cuba “of money and supplies, to reduce its financial resources and real wages, cause hunger, despair and the overthrow of the Government”, a line that remains unchanged six decades later, pointed.
Moreno explained that the conditions for the United States Government to try to suffocate Cuba early were given by the “liberating revolution, the popular character of the Cuban Revolution, which guaranteed the benefits were for the people, that everyone had equal opportunities.”
The also advisor to the Foreign Ministry made a historical review of measures that preceded the official declaration of the blockade and concluded that, in effect, this unilateral fence began “much earlier.”
Executive Order 3447 signed by Kennedy gave legal effect to a unilateral fence, the longest in history against any country.
During his term, Republican President Donald Trump (2017-2021) reinforced the blockade with 243 coercive measures still in force with his Democratic successor, Joe Biden.
